Zlib "Next Generation" Preparing Massive Decompression Speed-Up

After being in development for two years, a new beta release of Zlib-ng as the "next generation" data compression library is available with much faster data decompression.

With zlib-ng 2.1 beta there is upwards of 56% faster decompression performance when using an AVX2-capable x86_64 CPU. In general the decompression performance should be a "lot faster" and headlines this new beta release.

Zlib-ng 2.1 has also been working on compression improvements from levels 3 to 9 while the speed-ups are more focused on the decompression side. The zlib-ng 2.1 beta update has also been enhancing its CMake build system, improved support for the Apple M1, enhanced the EmScripten support for compiling to JavaScript, and many other changes.

Some of the instruction set optimizations with zlib-ng 2.1 beta are an Adler32 implementation with AVX-512 / AVX512-VNNI / VMX, CRC32-B using VPCLMULQDQ, side hash using VMX, Compare256 implementations using SSE2, and an inflate chunk copying using SSSE3.

Downloads and more details on the zlib-ng 2.1 beta release via GitHub.